jlutotherescue wrote:maybe you should even the odds just a little and use a bow and really earn your kill.
Some choose too, and it's great sport, but there's a lot more to hunting than sport. It's also about food on the table, and even meeting game management objectives. Hunting with a bow is, in a sense, kind of a luxury, in that it's a very inefficient tool, and only those with lots of free time to devote to hunting are likely to be successful with the bow.
If you've done any backpack hunting in Montana's wilderness areas you'll have no doubts about whether or not someone who has taken a game animal in the high peaks, butchered it, and then backpacked out the meat, over incredibly rugged and trailless terrain had "earned" their kill. Even a hunter carrying no camping gear other than a tarp, a pad and a summer bag, can end up staggering out under a pack well in excess of 100 lbs.